Steve: "A Great Day All Round"

27 April 2013

Davis pleased that home grown lads came through difficult test

Steve Davis, the Crewe Alexandra manager says it was a really satisfying day all round after his young side won a tight affair against Walsall. The Academy graduates helped Crewe to a 2-0 win over the Saddlers thanks to goals from captain Luke Murphy via the penalty spot and Chuks Aneke.

The win places Crewe in 13th place on 64 points and Davis praised his players for their all-round performance this season, which also included a second trip to Wembley in under 12 months for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

Steve told crewealex.net: “We have reached 64 points, finished strongly and won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy as well, so it has been a really good season for us and the players deserve the credit.

“At the start of the season I would have said getting to 64 points would have been a dream, especially after the tough start we had, but slowly we have progressed, got better and had some very good results. We have beaten some of the top sides, but also lost to some of the bottom sides, so we need to be that little bit more consistent next season.

“The fans stayed behind to show their appreciation to the supporters, but the players wanted to show their appreciation to the supporters as well. We have had some terrific support this season and they deserve the success we have had.

“The players have adapted to the division and today I wanted to play the home grown players and give them a go. They were good and it was a real satisfying day all round. We did put in two or three inexperienced players this afternoon to see how the handled it and they came through it against a good side.

There wasn’t many chances in the game, not clear cut but both teams wanted to get the ball down and play on a difficult pitch.

“I was delighted with a clean sheet and the fact that we have finished with two wins and two clean-sheets.

The boss said: “The second goal again was class from Chuks. We know he can do that, he has shown that twice in a week. It was worthy of winning any game.”